Image enhancement algorithms designed to sharpen text, if applied to pictorial image content, may produce visually annoying artifacts in some areas of the pictorial content. In particular, pictorial regions containing strong edges may be affected. While smoothing operations may enhance a natural image, the smoothing of regions containing text is seldom desirable. Reliable and efficient detection of text in digital images is advantageous so that content-type-specific image enhancement methods may be applied to the appropriate regions in a digital image.